Ingredients:
- Small dices of tofu - 100 gms.
- Finely chopped mushrooms - approx. 100 gms.
- Finely chopped onions - 2 medium onions.
- Finely chopped leek - 3-4 tbsp
- Ginger juliennes - 5-6 tbsp, please don't grate it, just make fine juliennes. Tastes better that way.
- Finely chopped cabbage - 3-4 tbsp.
- Bean sprouts - 3-4 tbsp.
- 1 Packet (40 gm) Maggi/Knorr 'Hot N Sour' soup mix. You can use cornflour instead, but taste changes.
- Soy Sauce - 5-6 tbsp, put more if you like darker soy taste.
- Green chilies - 2-3 whole green chilies.
- Sesame (or any other cooking) oil - 2 tbsp.
- Lemon - 1 medium size
- Salt to taste. Remember that Soy sauce is already a bit salty.
- roughly 100 gm noodles of your choice. I used flat rice noodles that we use for Pad Thai.
Photo:
Directions:
Take some oil in the pan and sauté finely chopped onions until brown. Then put all ginger juliennes, chopped cabbage and let the whole mixture become little tender. Put chopped mushrooms in this and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Add soup powder to this and pour 1 to 1.25 liters of water in it and add soy sauce to this. Add split green chilies to give it that spicy punch. Adjust chillies as per their size, spice and your preference. Add bean sprouts as this dark brown water starts boiling.
Add small dices of tofu to this boiling soup. Then add crushed noodles to this soup, not enough to make it a noodle soup, more like a few bits of noodle in each spoon. Let it simmer it and cook for for 5-7 minutes on low flame.
Switch off the flame and add lemon juice to the soup. Serve hot, garnish it with some crispy leek, and if you love sesame oil, and add a dash of sesame oil as you serve this soup - it gives that heavenly aroma and taste!
You can alter ingredients to suit your preferences. You can skip mushroom or cabbage if you want, and add any other veggies of your choice. Don't skip ginger, noodles, tofu and soy sauce though - it gives that yummy taste to this soup!
Tip:
You can prepare this soup well in advance and let those flavors (esp. whole split green chili) blend and mature well for few hours before you reheat and serve it hot!